Obituary notice of Professor Agassiz

Abstract

Permit me, before we proceed to the business of this evening, to refer in a very few words to one of the most distinguished Foreign Corresponding Fellows of this Society, whose death has just been announced. In every civilised nation throughout the globe the name of Agassiz is a household word. It is a name known not in one circle, but in all circles—not in one nation, but in all nations; and it is honoured as the name of one of the greatest men the world has ever produced. Men like Agassiz occur only at rare intervals, and their death causes darkness to fall upon the earth as if one of the lights of the world had been extinguished. Agassiz was born in Switzerland on 28th May 1807. He died in the United States of America on Sunday last, the 14th of this month. Cosmopolitan in his life as in his fame, he resided for the last twenty-seven years in the United States, and was recognised as the pioneer and leader of science in the New World. This Society had the honour of electing him, on 15th April 1869, one of its Foreign Corresponding Fellows. Time would fail to recount all the distinctions gained by Agassiz, and all the works he produced or accomplished. In his connection with Scotland, our University of Edinburgh may look back with pride to his having been a candidate for the Chair of Natural History, vacant by the death of Edward Forbes in 1854;* and